1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image generating system for generating an image as seen from a virtual camera in an object space and an information storage medium used in this image generating system.
2. Prior Art
There is known an image generating system which generates images of objects as seen from a virtual camera when the objects are arranged within a virtual three-dimensional space or an object space. Such a system is very popular because of providing a so-called virtual reality.
With such image generating system used in a soccer simulation game, for example, a player enjoys controlling a game character on a screen who passes a ball or kicks a goal. By using this image generating system, the player feels as if he/she were actually playing soccer.
In the conventional soccer simulation games, a game character which is controllable by a player is not fixed, and may be a game character that keeps a ball, for example. More particularly, when the player controls a first game character and then passes a ball to a second game character, the player's game character is changed from the first game character to the second game character. For such a reason, the virtual camera does not follow one fixed character.
However, such a soccer simulation game according to the prior art has the following problems.
First of all, the player must do a complicated control since a game character controlled by the player is frequently changed from one to another during the game play. Game beginners tend to avoid such a complicated game.
Second, the player cannot easily feel strong affection for his or her game character or enthusiasm about the game. In such a type of simulation games, game characters are often modeled on actual star players. However, if there is a game character modeled on the player's favorite soccer star, the player cannot always control the game character in a conventional simulation game in which the player's controllable game character is frequently changed. Thus it is difficult to feel strong affection for the player's game character and enthusiasm about the game.
Thus, the conventional soccer simulation games are disadvantageous in that the player's game character is frequently changed and that the virtual camera does not follow one fixed player's game character.
Therefore, the inventor has developed a soccer simulation game of such a type that the player's game character is fixed to a particular one and that the virtual camera follows that fixed character. In such a soccer simulation game wherein the virtual camera follows one fixed player's game character, it is desirable that an image preferable for the game play can be generated in real time when the positional relationship between the player's game character and the ball is varied.